


Ducks in a Row

by sevenfists



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: F/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-07
Updated: 2006-09-07
Packaged: 2018-10-31 21:55:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10908222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenfists/pseuds/sevenfists
Summary: "I'm pregnant," Sandy announces, sitting on the couch in her underwear with a cereal bowl nestled against her chest. It's the end of February.





	Ducks in a Row

**Author's Note:**

> Idea by mcee, artwork by yours truly.

"I'm pregnant," Sandy announces, sitting on the couch in her underwear with a cereal bowl nestled against her chest. It's the end of February.

" _What_?" Jared almost falls out of his chair. He tosses the newspaper onto the coffee table and stares at her.

"I want to keep it," Sandy says. "If you don't want to stick around, you don't have to, but I thought I'd let you know." She sounds defiant, but her face is wide open, her lower lip trembling a little.

Jared opens his mouth but no sound comes out. He clears his throat and tries again. "We can go look for a crib this weekend," he says.

"I think it's a little early for that," Sandy says, and then she starts _crying_.

"Baby, what's wrong," Jared says, moving over to the couch and sliding an arm around Sandy's waist. She smacks at him until he lets go of her.

"Shut up," she says. "Go to work, leave me alone. I'm fine."

"I love you," Jared says. "I wanna have a baby with you."

Sandy wipes at her eyes. "Stop it, I'm going to get all mushy. Go away."

He's distracted on set. Kim yells at him about eight hundred times. At lunch, Jensen pulls him aside and says, "Dude, what's going on, you're acting like somebody fed you stupid pills for breakfast."

"Nothing, I'm just tired," Jared says.

The truth is, he's so happy he can't see straight. He keeps thinking about what their baby will look like. A tiny little person made by him and Sandy. Jared likes babies, he likes their tiny wrinkled faces and the way their red mouths split wide open when they cry. And now he and Sandy are going to have a baby of their own.

"I'm going to have a baby," Jared says to the mirror in his trailer, after they've wrapped for the day. "I'm going to be a father." His reflection looks like someone who's ready for it: serious, mature, a steady job and a mortgage—an actual grown-up.

He doesn't _feel_ like an adult, though. He feels scared and giddy and uncertain. And happy.

***

Jared calls his parents the next morning and they make all the appropriate proud-yet-freaked-out noises. His mama gets on the phone with Sandy and says something that makes her cry and laugh at the same time. Jared's afraid she'll start choking.

"I love your mom," she says when she hangs up.

"My mama loves you," Jared says, because it's the truth.

The first trimester is awful. Sandy's bloated, miserable, throwing up every morning. Jared's seen her cry maybe three times _ever_ , and suddenly she's sobbing nonstop, uncontrollably. She doesn't even want to have sex anymore, which makes Jared worry that the apocalypse is approaching, because he didn't think _anything_ could kill Sandy's sex drive.

Jared calls his mama a lot for advice.

"JT, that's your baby she's carrying," his mama says. "You move the moon and the stars for that lady, you hear me?"

"Yes ma'am," Jared says.

"I want to die," Sandy moans from the bathroom.

They tell people at the beginning of April, the third month. Sandy wants to wait until her second trimester, but Jared blurts it out to Jensen on set one day, and after that the cat's out of the bag.

"You're _what_?" Jensen yelps.

"Um," Jared says.

It's all over the set by the end of the day. "Hey, congrats," Dave the lighting guy says, clapping Jared on the shoulder, and Jared would swear up and down that he hasn't even _seen_ Dave in about a week, much less talked to him about anything baby-related.

"You're a rat fink," he tells Jensen.

"It's your own fault for holding out me," Jensen says, eyebrow raised, and goes back to his PSP. "Tell Sandy I wanna take her out for dinner. When was the last time you took her out? You're a pig."

"Two nights ago," Jared grates out.

"Well," Jensen says, looking a little abashed. " _Still_."

"Jensen says I'm a pig," he tells Sandy when he gets home.

She's curled up on the couch, buried under a huge pile of blankets. The lamp behind the couch casts circles of light over her face. She looks like a painting. "You are," she says. "Also, you run like a girl." She doesn't look up from her book.

Jared sits down next to her, squeezing his ass onto the sliver of couch next to her left shoulder. "You have a good day?"

"Yeah," Sandy says. She closes her book finally, smiles up at him. "I only puked three times, it's a world record."

"I, uh," Jared says. He rubs the back of his neck. "I kinda let it slip to Jensen that you're. You know."

"Pregnant?" Sandy says dryly. "You know what they say, Jared—if you can't talk about it, you aren't ready to do it."

"You're not mad?"

Sandy shrugs. "We have to tell people at some point. Pretty soon I'll be waddling around like some sort of large aquatic mammal."

"And you'll look gorgeous doing it," Jared says, bending down to kiss the corner of her mouth. "Whales are kinda sexy."

"Shut up," Sandy says, shoving at his arm and laughing.

So things are fine, they're good; even with Sandy crying all the time and surviving on toast and green tea, they're fighting a lot less than they usually do. Jared misses having sex, but Sandy's more than willing to give him an early-morning handjob if he gives her a back rub after he comes.

That month they move back to L.A. Sandy still has a house there. Supernatural isn't going to get renewed for a fourth season, which sucks, but they've known about it for a while. Jared doesn't really mind; he's ready to move on, and both he and Jensen have gotten enough exposure from the show that they'll be in demand for the next few years.

Jensen gets snapped up by some lame comedy about lawyers, a re-hashing of Ally McBeal or some shit, but he's got the lead role and he's happy. Jared gets about five different offers but he turns them all down.

"What the fuck is wrong with you!" Sandy yells at him when he tells her.

"I don't want to do another TV show right now," he says. "The hours suck, I hate it. I'm never home. We're gonna have a kid, babe, I don't wanna be on set sixteen hours a day."

"You're an idiot," Sandy says.

But it works out fine, because Jared gets a part in a movie—a good one, about a guy coming home from Iraq and finding himself or whatever. He brings home one of the sample posters that the art design people are tossing around and shows it to Sandy.

"You're billed first," she says, and starts crying.

***

"Week thirteen," Sandy reads aloud in the worst English accent Jared's ever heard. "Congratulations! You have reached the beginning of your second trimester."

"So what's that mean," Jared says.

"Hell if I know," Sandy says, and turns the page. "Looks like I'm going to start eating again, gain some weight, and have to buy some maternity clothes."

"You're gonna stop puking now?" Jared asks. "Sounds good to me." He rolls over in bed and snags the paper from where Sandy's left it on the floor.

"Just for that, I'm going to throw up all over you," Sandy says, and makes elaborate gagging sounds.

"You're disgusting," Jared says. He drops the paper back on the floor and rolls over again, presses his face against Sandy's bare thigh. She pushes her fingers into his hair.

"Gimme some toast," Jared says.

Sandy hands him a slice. "Don't get crumbs on the sheets," she says.

Jared slides his hand up her thigh, pushes her tank top out of the way and splays his fingers across her abdomen. Her belly is just beginning to swell. He can feel the pulse of blood through the artery beside her navel. He kisses her leg, bites her gently. Sandy makes a humming noise.

"You trying to get in my pants, Padalecki?" she asks.

"Basically, yeah," Jared admits.

"Ha! Too bad," Sandy says. "I'm getting a haircut in half an hour. Quit it!" She gets off the bed, laughing at him, and goes into the bathroom. Jared sticks his hand down his boxers.

That's the fourth month. He wakes up one morning with his hard-on nestled against the curve of Sandy's ass. He rocks his hips a little, muzzy, half-asleep, just enjoying the feel of it.

"Okay," Sandy says, and it takes Jared a moment to figure out what she's talking about, but then she lifts her right leg and hooks it backward, draping it over his knees.

Jared smoothes his hand along the curve of her waist. "You wanna?" he asks softly. It's bright in their bedroom, a little too warm. The air smells like sleep and sex.

"Yeah," Sandy says. She wriggles her hips a little and next thing Jared knows he's inside her, her body opening up around him like it hasn't been three entire months since the last time.

"Sandy," he gasps.

"Shh," Sandy says. She draws his hand around between her legs and he rubs fervently at her clit, soaking up the small breathless sounds she makes.

It isn't the best sex he's ever had—that honor belongs to that one night in New York, with the champagne and the bag of sex toys—but it definitely goes in the Top 10.

***

The book didn't lie: Sandy starts eating like she's making up for lost time. Which she is. She sends Jared to the grocery store with a list that's three pages long.

"Nutella? Green olives? Powdered milk? What the fuck, Sandy, we don't need any of this shit," Jared says.

"The baby wants it," Sandy sniffs. So of course Jared buys all of it, and then has to watch while she eats some sort of disgusting banana/marshmallow paste/red pepper sandwich concoction.

Then her clothes stop fitting.

"I'm fat," she says, throwing her favorite pair of jeans onto Jared's lap.

"No you aren't, baby," he says, absently patting her hip and trying to look around her to watch the TV. The Spurs are getting their asses beat and it's _painful_.

"Actually, I am," she says. "None of my pants fit anymore."

"Isn't that supposed to happen?" Jared asks. The game goes into overtime.

Sandy heaves a sigh. "Fine. I'll leave you here with your lame-ass basketball. I'm going shopping."

"Have fun," Jared says absently.

Sandy comes back a few hours later with five enormous bags of clothes. She dumps them out all over the couch, which means all over Jared, who's now watching football.

"Maternity clothes all suck," she says. "They're fucking butt-ugly. Who buys this shit?"

"Apparently you do," Jared says.

"Jared," Sandy says, sounding disgusted. "Look at this." She holds up a potato sack of a shirt with a teddy bear printed on the front.

"That's hot," Jared says in his best Paris Hilton voice.

"You're never getting laid again," Sandy says, and flounces off toward the bedroom. Except then they fuck in the bathtub that evening, so clearly it's an empty threat.

Near the end of June, Sandy goes to San Francisco for a week to visit her friend Yesenia, and when she comes back, her belly's popped. Jared can feel it pressing against him when he catches her up in a hug, small and round and impossible to miss.

"Whoa," he says.

"Shut up, I know," Sandy says.

"No, I mean. It's hot," Jared says.

Sandy looks up at him, mouth pursed. "Really?"

"Yeah," Jared says. "Fuck, Sandy. You look really good." He noses at her earlobe, smelling her hair and her warm skin. She smells different, like toasted almonds. He tells her that.

"Yeah, that would be the new lotion I'm using, Jared."

Jared laughs against the side of her neck. "You're such a bitch," he says.

"You can't get enough," Sandy says.

"I can't," Jared agrees.

***

Sandy's not one of those women who carry low and small. She's so little that her belly's enormous compared to the rest of her. At six months she looks like she's due any day. They're at the grocery store and the woman ahead of them in line says, "When are you due, honey?"

"November," Sandy says.

"Oh," the woman says. "My goodness."

"I'm a hippo," Sandy complains to Jared in the car.

"But a sexy hippo," Jared says.

"Can a hippo be sexy?" Sandy asks dubiously. She flicks on the turn signal.

"Probably to other hippos," Jared says.

He flops down on the couch when they get home and turns on the TV. There's nothing on, just a bunch of Sunday afternoon golf tournaments and shit. Jared hates golf. It's Jensen's thing, not his.

Sandy wanders out of the kitchen, holding half of a banana in her hand. She stands in front of Jared while she eats it, absentmindedly running her hand through his hair. He doesn't tell her to move. He doesn't want her to, he could look at her forever. She's beautiful: her round belly, the skin over it taut like a drum; her swollen tits threatening to spill out of the low-cut tank top she's wearing; the weight she's gained filling out her body, giving her a little double-chin. She looks soft and radiant, as happy as Jared's ever seen her.

Jared pulls her to him, presses his face against her belly.

"Hey," Sandy says. She traces the curves of his ears with her fingers.

"Hey," Jared replies. He nudges up the fabric of her top and kisses her stomach, running his tongue in circles around her protruding navel. Sandy shifts her hips. Jared smiles against her skin and reaches down to gather up her floor-length skirt, taking huge fistfuls of red cloth and drawing it up around her hips. She isn't wearing anything underneath.

"Jesus, Sandy," Jared breathes.

"Like anything you see?" she asks.

Jared doesn't answer. He slides his right hand between her legs and pushes two fingers into her wet cunt. She's hot, expansive. She gasps and grabs at his hair. Jared turns his wrist, stroking his fingers up inside her.

"Shit. Give me another," she says, and he does. He lifts the heel of his hand so she can grind down against it. It doesn't take long. She moans and comes in quick flutters around his fingers, her own hands tugging at his hair, just this side of pain.

When she sinks down on his cock, her skirt spread out around them like some sort of demented flower, Jared cups her face in his hands. His fingers smear her own wetness against the skin behind her ear. She bends down and kisses him, her teeth sharp in his lower lip. Jared comes with her tongue in his mouth and her fingers scraping over his nipples through the fabric of his t-shirt.

Sandy strips down after they're done and lies on top of Jared, her warm body flush against his. Her bare leg brushes against his limp cock, hanging out of the open fly of his jeans. She runs her hands under his shirt.

"C'mere," Jared says, and pulls her up until he can suck on her tits. Her nipples tighten up under his tongue, going tiny and hard.

"Again," Sandy says, and Jared runs one hand between her legs, gathering wetness, and sticks his fingers up her ass. She grinds against him, moaning, and there's a huge wet spot on his jeans by the time she comes again.

***

Sandy likes being pregnant. "I like being pregnant," she informs Jared.

"I like it too," Jared says. "You're horny as fuck."

Sandy rolls her eyes. "Yeah, come on, big boy, do me harder," she says.

"Can I?" Jared asks.

"Yeah, okay," Sandy says, and takes off her shirt.

They're having amazing sex. Jared has no complaints. Not that he did before, but even less so now. Sandy's tits are enormous, and she's more than happy to him slide his dick up between them and rub the head against her nipples. And she'll let him go down on her for ages—she was too impatient before, always eager to get to the main event, but now she'll lie there while Jared sucks on her clit for a blissful eternity.

"I have the best girlfriend in the world," he tells Jensen over the phone.

"I don't want to hear about your pregnant sex antics," Jensen says. "I hope you're treating her right, you dick."

Jared rolls his eyes. "I just rolled my eyes at you," he says. "Don't you have lines to memorize or something?"

"Fuck off and die," Jensen says, laughing, and hangs up.

Jared wanders into the kitchen. It's Saturday morning. The coffee's still dripping a little into its pot. Jared pours himself a cup and joins Sandy at the table.

"Little fucker won't stop kicking," Sandy complains.

Jared pauses with his coffee mug halfway to his mouth. "You can feel it kicking?" he asks.

"Yeah, it's been beating my insides black and blue for about three days," she says, peeling her banana. "It's like someone's smashing a hammer right behind my belly-button."

"Can I feel it?" Jared asks. His voice is a little squeaky.

Sandy looks at him with her big eyes and he wants to never let her leave the house again, he wants to protect her from everything in the world that doesn't love her as much as he does. "Yeah," she says. "Give me your hand."

Jared lets her move his hand until it's pressing against the upper curve of her belly, and then he feels it: a steady fluttering motion, stronger than he was expecting, more rhythmic. "There," Sandy says.

"That's our baby," Jared says, full of wonder.

"Yeah," Sandy says.

That day they go shopping for baby clothes. Sandy loses patience after about half an hour. "My back hurts," she says. "You see that nice bench over there? I'm going to sit down. Have fun."

"Okay," Jared says, flipping through the racks. They don't know if the baby's a boy or a girl yet—Sandy's got some demented idea about being "surprised"—so he's picking out little jumpers and shirts and one-pieces in neutral colors, pastel greens and yellows. There are tiny jackets with elephants and ducklings on them. It's so cute Jared might die.

Sandy slips her hand into his when they're walking out to the car. "You're going to be a great dad," she says softly.

 _Holy shit_ , Jared thinks. _I'm going to be a dad_.

***

Near the end of the seventh month, Jared wakes up one morning with his heart racing. He can't shake it. He's jittery all through breakfast. There's an iron band around his ribs. He can't get enough air.

"What's your problem, Padalecki," Sandy says.

"Nothing," Jared says. "Uh. Nothing. I'm going out for a while, okay?"

Sandy wrinkles her forehead. "Okay," she says.

Jared drives around the city for most of the day, going up into the canyons and all over, barely paying attention to where he's going. He's twenty-seven years old and he's having a baby. He isn't ready for it. There's no way he's ready to take responsibility for a _person_ , for an _actual person's_ whole life.

By the time he gets back to the house, he's worked himself into a state. "I don't think this is a good idea," he says, bursting in the front door, disheveled and a little out of breath.

Sandy looks up from her book on natural childbirth. "What are you talking about?" she asks, sounding amused.

"This. You and me," Jared says. "Having a baby. I just. I'm not sure it's a good idea."

"Well, it's a little late for that," Sandy says.

"I'm not sure I can do this," Jared says, and then has to watch as Sandy's whole face changes, goes dark.

She heaves herself off the sofa and goes into the bedroom. Jared stands there in the middle of the living room and watches as she starts stuffing clothes into her suitcase. He stands there as she comes back out, leaning sideways a little to balance the weight of her suitcase. She doesn't look at him.

"I'm going to stay at Julia's. Call me when you figure out what the fuck you want," Sandy says, and then she's gone.

As soon as the door clicks shut behind her, Jared wants to run after her and beg forgiveness, beg her to come back. He doesn't. He stands there, his hands dangling at his sides.

Sandy's gone for a week. Jared doesn't shower or eat much. He stays inside and watches TV. Jensen calls him, and Chad, but Jared doesn't answer the phone, and he doesn't listen to the messages they leave him. His mama calls him and he doesn't answer the phone then, either. He sleeps on the couch because the bed is too big and empty, and the pillows still smell like Sandy's shampoo.

Jensen stops by one day, unannounced. He and Jared don't hang out much anymore, ever since Jensen started his new show and Jared decided to take some time off, but they have the kind of friendship where it doesn't matter if they go a couple months without seeing each other. Jensen has his own key to the house, and that's more than Jared can say for the guys he plays poker with or hangs out with at his favorite bar.

"Where's Sandy," he asks, strolling into the living room like all's well with the world. It probably is, for him—Jensen's never been prone to angst or self-reflection.

"She left me," Jared says dully.

"What the fuck, dude," Jensen says, sitting down on the couch beside Jared.

"I'm an idiot," Jared says.

"No fucking kidding," Jensen says. "What the hell did you do?"

"I told her. Christ. I told her I didn't think I was ready to have a baby."

"You aren't," Jensen says, matter-of-fact. "Nobody ever is. You're supposed to be terrified, man, it keeps you from doing dumb-shit stuff like dropping the baby on its head or feeding it thumbtacks or something."

Jared bends over until his forehead's resting on his knees. "She'll never forgive me," he mumbles.

Jensen sighs. "Go get your ass in the shower. You smell like a sewer. It's time for an intervention."

When Jared comes out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around his waist, he hears Jensen talking on the phone.

"He's a dipshit," Jensen's saying. "You know this. He's not going to change." There's a pause. "Uh-huh," Jensen says. "Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay look, just come over here and talk to him. You can always leave again. Uh-huh. All right, call me, yeah? Bye."

 _Fuck_ , Jared thinks. Jensen called _Sandy_. He should have known better than to trust that wily bastard.

Jensen leaves. Jared lies on the couch and stares at the ceiling. He hears the door open and the sounds of someone kicking off their shoes. Then footsteps. He closes his eyes.

"Jared," Sandy says.

Jared opens his eyes and looks at her. She's got her hair pulled back from her face. It looks like she's been crying. "Hi," he says.

"I need to know if you can do this with me," Sandy says.

Jared thinks his heart might fall right out of his chest if he can't get her to forgive him. He'll do anything. He'll change the tides for her. "I can," he says. "Sandy. I have to. I don't—I need to be with you."

Sandy brings up one hand to cover her mouth. "Oh, god," she says.

"Hey," Jared says. He catches her by the wrist and pulls her down until she's nestled beside him on the couch, their legs entwined. He touches two fingers to the side of her neck and counts every beat of her fluttering pulse.

"I forgive you," Sandy says. "I'm sorry."

That night, Jared strips her down and spread her out on their bed, licks her all over: the thin scars beneath her tits, the line of her jaw, the tiny constellation of moles on the inside of her left thigh. He rests his hands on her belly when he goes down on her, and he can feel the baby kicking under his palms.

"Jared," Sandy says, and lifts her hips against his mouth. Her brown skin is covered with a fine sheen of sweat. The taste of her is like nothing else in the world. Jared presses both of his thumbs into her, licks up between them, and her cunt pulses around his tongue when she comes.

He fucks her carefully, supports her with both hands cupping the wings of her shoulderblades while she straddles his lap. "I love you," he says to her. He whispers it against her throat, the hollow between her collarbones.

The second time she comes, she says his name, clear and unsurprised.

They fall asleep for a while, tangled together in the sheets, and then wake up in the middle of the night and do it all over again.

***

Sandy's version of nesting is to frantically waddle around the house all day, fussing about the color they've chosen for the baby's room (light blue) and the amount of baby clothes they have and basically every other goddamn thing in the world she can think of to worry about.

"You need to settle down," Jared tells her.

"No time," Sandy says, taking frantic notes from her pregnancy books. "The baby's almost here, Jared. You know what that means? It means I get to squeeze a nine-pound lump through my pussy. It's going to suck. You better be happy."

"I'm _so_ happy," Jared says, and goes to see if there's any beer in the fridge.

Sandy's wound so tight that Jared's surprised her doctor hasn't called her to task for high blood pressure. She isn't even sleeping that much anymore. She's pretty good about leaving Jared alone, but sometimes he wakes up when she gets up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

"My bladder's the size of a goddamn pea," she grumbles to him, seeing that he's awake.

"I know, babe," he says. He holds out his arm and Sandy curls her body against him, resting her heavy belly against his hip. He kisses the top of her head.

"I wish my mom were here," Sandy says quietly. "Don't get me wrong, you're terrific, but. I wish she could be here."

"I know," Jared says. He rubs her back in long strokes until he falls asleep.

They go to childbirthing classes. Jared feels like a complete tool, crouching behind Sandy and holding her elbows while she huffs and pants, but it makes her happy.

"I'm going to do this shit right," she says grimly. "Water birth! No epidural! Christ, you better rub ointment on my hemorrhoids."

"I'll be glad to put cream on your asshole," Jared says, and he really means it.

Sandy's due date comes and goes. "I'm going to be pregnant forever," she tells Jared.

"No you aren't," he says.

"What if the baby's stuck in there? What if I never give birth? I could have swollen ankles for the rest of my life. I would fucking kill myself." She moans and pulls the comforter up over her head.

She won't talk to Jared about it, but he can tell that she's in a state of utter panic. She waddles around with one hand pressed to her lower back, eats a lot of ice cream, and snaps at Jared constantly.

"You want to watch that movie tonight?" he asks. A perfectly innocent question, but Sandy glares at him like he's just suggested that they go out and kill some puppies.

"Fuck off and die," she snarls.

"Whoa, okay," Jared says, holding up his hands.

Sandy starts crying.

Jared scrubs both hands over his face and sits down beside her on the couch. "Why are you acting like I'm the bad guy here?" he asks.

"Go away," Sandy says, sobbing.

"Sandy. Seriously, what's going on."

"Okay, you know what! I'm fat and I can't walk or tie my shoes and you won't even fucking marry me!" Sandy yells, her face red and blotchy, tear-stained. She's never been more beautiful.

"You want to get married?" Jared says dumbly.

"Of course I want to get married! I'm having your motherfucking baby!" Sandy hollers, and smacks his shoulder with one tiny hand.

"I, uh. I don't have a ring," Jared says.

Sandy wipes her nose with the back of her hand. "I don't care," she says, and cries even harder.

"Sandy," Jared says. He wraps his arms around her, kisses her over and over again, tasting salt. "We can get married tomorrow. Let's go to the courthouse or whatever, Jesus, of course I want to marry you."

"Okay," Sandy sniffles. "Go get me some ice cream. I can't move."

That's the ninth month.

***

  
  
  



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